Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-05-06
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
ELOQUENT DISCOURSE CONCERNING
GOOD AND BAD LITERATURE.

s'Many of Them Also Which Used Curl
GUS Arts Brought Their Books To-
Men," ~.
BROOKLYN, May 1.-At the tabernacle tfris
morning the pastor, the Rev. T. De Witt
Talmage, D. D., expounded some of the Pro
verbs of Solomon The congregation sang
with magnificent effect the hymn beginning:
Arm of the Lord, awake! awake!
Put on thy strength, the nations shake.
DR.. Talmage took for his text Acts xix, 10:
''Many of them also which used curious
arts brought their books together, and burned
them before all men: and they counted the
price of them, and found it $4,000 pieces of
silver"
Paul had been stirring up Ephesus with
some lively sermons about the sins of that
place. Among the more important results was
the fact that the citizens brought out their
bad books, and in a public place made bon
fire of them. I see the people coming out
with their arms full of Ephesian literature,
and tossing it into the flames. I hear an
economist standing by and saying: "Stop this
waste Here are $500 worth of books-do
you propose to burn them all ups If you don't
want to read them yourselves, sell them, and
let somebody else read Them NO" said the
people, eff these books are not good enough
for us, they are not good for anybody else,
and we shall stand and watch until the last
leaf has turned to ashes. They have done us
world of harm, and they shall never do
others harm" Hear the fiam1es crackle and
roar
Well, my friends, one of che wants of the
cities of this country ic hopfira, Of had
books and newspapers. We have enough fuel
to make blaze 200 feet high. Many of the
publishing houses would clio well to throw into
the blaze their entire sto ok of goods. Bring
forth the insufferable tn ash and put it into the
fire, and let it be know n, in the presence OF
God, and angels, and m en-, that you are going
to rid your homes of the overlapping and
underlying curse of pre- yaigate literature.
The printing press is the mightiest agency
on the earth for good 81 md for evil The min
lister of the Gospel sta nding in pulpit, has a
responsible position; brat do not think it is
as responsible as the position of an editor or
publisher At what distant point of time, at
what far out cycle of eternity will cease the
influence of Henry j. Raymond, or a Horace
Greeley, or James Gordon Bennett, or a
Watson Webb, or an Erastus Brooks, or
Thomas Kinsella? Take the simple fact
that our New York dailies now have circu-
lation of about S50,0O0 per day, and add to
it the fact that three Of our weekly period
icals have an aggregate circulation of about
100000 and then cipher, if you can, how
far up, and how far down and how far out
reach the influences of the American printing
press Great God, what is so be the issue of
all this? 1 believe the Lord intends the print
ing press to be the chief means for the worlds
nd decentralization T hot
the great last battle of thewerld will not be
fought with swords and guns, but with types
and presses-a purified and Gospel literature
triumphing over, trampling down and crush
ing out forever that which is deprayed. The
only way to overcome -unclean literature is
by scattering abroad that which is lhealthful.
May God speed the cylinders of an'hoMest, in
telligent, aggressive, Christian printing press.
have to tell you this morning that the
greatest blessing that ever came to this nation
is that of an elevated literature, and tie
greatest scourge has been that of unclean
literature. This last has its victims in all &C.
equations and departments. 1t has helped to
fill insane asylums, and penitentiaries, and
aims houses and dens of shame. The bodies of
this infection lie in the hospitals and in the
graves, while their souls are being tossed over
into lost eternity, an avalanche of horror
and despair!
The London plague was nothing to it, That
counted its victims by thousands, but this
modern pest has already shoveled its millions
into the charnel house of the morally dead.
The longest rail train that ever ran over the
Erie or Hudson tracks was not long enough
or large enough to carry the beastliness and
the putrefaction which have been gathered
up in bad books and newspapers of this land
in the last twenty years.
Now, it is amid such circumstances that
put this morning a question of overmaster-
ing Importance to you and your families.
What books and newspapers shall we read?
You see I group them together. A news
paper is only book in swifter and more
portable shape, and the same rules which
will apply to book reading will apply to
newspaper reading. What shall we reads
Shall our minds be the receptacle of every
thing that an author has mind to writes Shall
| there be no distinction between the tree, of
| life and the tree of deaths Shall WESTON
| down and drink out of the trough which the
wickedness of men has filled With pollution
end shame? Shall we nire in iIHpurity and
chase fantastic will O the wisDs across the
swamps when we might walk in the bloom
ing gardens of Coda Oh, moi For the sake of
our present and everlastipg welfare we must
make an intelligent Christian choice. Stand
ing as we do chin deep(in fictitious literature.
| the first question that many of the young
people are asking me is: "Shall we read
novelssn reply: There are novels that are
| pure, good, Christian elevating to the heart
and ennoblng to the life. But have still
further to Say that believe that ninety nine
out of 1909 novels in this day are baleful and
| destructive to the last degree. A pure work
of fiction is history and poetry combined. 1t
| is a history of things around us with the
| licenses and the assumed names of poetry.
THE world can never pay the debt which it
/ owes to such fiction writers as Hawthorne
and Mckenzie, and Landon and Hunt, and
| Arthur and Marion Harland and others
| whose names are familiar to all. The follies
| of high life were. never better exposed than
| by Miss Edgeworth. The memories of the
past were never more faithfully embalmed
than in the writings of Walter Scott.
| Cooper's novels are BEAUTIFULLY redolent with
| the breath of the seaweed and the air of the
| American forest. Charles Kingsley has
| smitten the morbidity of the world, and led
| a great many to appreciate the poetry of
sound health, strong muscles and fresh air.
| Thackeray did grand work in caricaturing
| the pretenders to gentility and high blood.
| Dickens has built his own monument in his
| books, which are an everlasting plea for the
poor and the anathema of injustice. Now, I say,
books like these, read at right times, and read
| in right proportion with other books, cannot
help but be ennobling and purifying; but, alas
| for the loathsome and impure literature that
has come upon this country in the shape of
novels, like freshet OVERLOOKING all the
banks of decency and common sensel They.
ara coming from some Of the most celebrated